


2727 Piikoi Street

by imaginary_iby



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Romance, attempts at being funny on the part of the author
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 20:03:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/802672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_iby/pseuds/imaginary_iby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ways in which Danny makes himself at home by Steve's side, and the family he gains as the years go by.  (Featuring Steve in Timberland boots and little else, and happy goofs who like to make out against the front door).</p>
            </blockquote>





	2727 Piikoi Street

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trying something a little different, style-wise, so hopefully it works out okay. Thanks for reading!

Danny wakes slowly, his limbs heavy from sleep and lazy with warmth. There’s a dull ache at the base of his tailbone - he’s not too sure what to make of it, even though his reptilian brain-stem is telling him that it’s extremely pleasant, familiar and satisfying.

He shifts, blinks, wiggles a little when there’s a pain in his neck. It’s a shirt button poking into him, strips of torn cotton hanging loosely from the eyelets, a tiny crime scene. Holding it up to the light, he rolls it between finger and thumb, confused, before suddenly a torrent of memory slams through him. 

“Easy,” Steve soothes from out of nowhere, sliding a hand over his belly. And seriously, no, fuck that shit, Danny is not a spooked horse and he will not be treated like one. Except his breath is whistling in his ears, his pulse is racing, and Steve’s hand feels oh-so-good.

Danny knows _exactly_ how that poor abused shirt button came to be, and, as is his habit, he’s fully prepared to place the blame squarely on Steve’s shoulders. But Steve’s touching him, gently, with a kind of patient kindness that is as unsettling as it is comforting.

The thing is, there had been words. Not particularly eloquent, nor particularly romantic – but there had been words, the night before, of the “are-you-sure?” variety. There had been hesitancy, and stuttered touches, and speedy orgasms, the kind of goofiness more suited to virginal-teens than men in their mid… well, alright, fine, _late_ thirties.

But Danny knows from mistakes, knows that midnight good-ideas can easily translate to _what the fuck have I done?_ mornings - god, even during the divorce he and Rachel still slept together once or twice. 

Steve’s touch continues, his thumb sweeping patterns over the angle of Danny’s hip, and it’s stupid, it’s oh so stupid, but it’s his hair that does Danny in. It’s all ruffled and brown, and Danny remembers carding his fingers through it, tugging it this way and that. 

He remembers the warm fire that settled in his belly as he did so - not from the sex, that had been earlier – but from the ridiculous sense of happiness at being allowed to touch, at being snugged beneath all that muscle, at being the focus of Steve’s radiantly satisfied smile.

He doesn’t really know what he’s doing when he flicks the button aside, tugs Steve to shift on top of him. He only knows that it feels right, only knows that Steve puffs out a breath of relief, and the mere thought that Steve might have been worried makes his belly hurt.

There’s round two after that, then a prelude to round three, followed by a long speech about respecting shirts, Danny’s hands windmilling even as Steve studies him as he would a specimen at the museum.

They head downstairs, Danny trotting quietly and lost in a daze of familiarity and newness. He knows the McGarrett house like the back of his hand, is privy to each and every nook and cranny - but he’s never been naked under this roof, never watched its owner scrunch his face when his orgasm is too much, and he’s certainly never seen his own underwear caught on the ship’s wheel that hangs beneath the stairs. 

He tries to surreptitiously unhook them, but it’s a lost cause and he knows it. Steve is already hooting with laughter, maybe even a smidgeon of pride, and he guides Danny’s still naked ass into the kitchen with sneaky hands.

-

“Anything?” Steve hollers, little more than a flashlight moving through the darkness of the backyard.

Danny flicks the light-switch a few times, but nope, nada, no joy, still inky blackness. He shouts back as much, just makes out Steve’s groan of frustration over the roll of the waves, heads back to the lanai for further communication. Folding his arms on the banister, he presses his mouth to his forearm to physically stopper any chuckling – Steve is swearing at the fuse box like, well, like a sailor on leave.

“Anything?” Steve hollers again, but before Danny can return to try the switch once more, a burst of light sparks all around. The bedroom and backyard flood with brightness, and with a shout of triumph Steve begins to walk across the grass and oh, oh fuck, Danny had not been expecting that, had not expecting that at all.

Steve is looking up at him, naked save for a threadbare tee and his Timberlands, unlaced in such a way that would surely earn him a military spanking. The rest of him is lean, long muscle, the tip of his cock poking out from beneath the hem of his shirt. He has a smudge of dirt on his nose, and he looks so stupidly pleased to have restored the power of light that he might fall over with happiness.

“Get up here!” Danny shouts, breaking off to laugh, because Steve is a goof, but he’s _his_ goof, naked and handsome and happy.

Steve adjusts his weight, crosses his arms, and Danny _knows_ that Steve’s going to be difficult even before he growls, “No, _you_ get down _here._ ” 

What follows can only be considered a shouting match of epic proportions and dubious wit, but it’s good, good for the soul, good for the bit of their relationship that is founded upon making each other batshit crazy. 

Things take a turn for the hysterical, however, when suddenly Mrs. Peterson joins in. She’s an eighty-year old who’s lived beside the McGarrett house for decades, and her bellow is enough to make even the hardest of Steve’s drill-sergeants quake in their boots. “Oh for heaven’s sake, Steven! The bed is _upstairs_ , _you_ are _downstairs_! Do the math, shut up, and go and get laid already, the rest of us are trying to sleep!” 

Danny knows that Steve will deny it until the day he dies, but he skitters across the lawn like a firecracker was lit under his ass.

-

Danny moves in, officially, in a “my-phone bill-is-your-phone bill, my hot-water-problems-are-your-hot-water-problems” sort of way, on a Tuesday morning. People he doesn’t even know come to help, and his favorite armchair from ma’s place in Jersey has arrived, to nobody’s greater surprise than his own. 

There’s pizza all over the place, sand all over the place, Samoan-Hawaiians all over the place, and Danny’s not even sure what his life is anymore, he’s only sure that he likes it. 

Grace is befriending Kamekona’s cousin’s girlfriend’s sister’s great niece, with the ease and openness that comes from youth. Chin’s arranging Danny’s records in a way that he’s sure will stump him for a few weeks, before the light bulb goes off and he has to buy many pastries of thanks.

Kono is pretzeled into the cupboard under the kitchen sink, because Steve’s shit with the pipes but refuses to admit it. She’s performing various feats of plumbing-wonder with little more than elbow grease and a wrench, and Danny makes a mental note to loan her the keys to the Camaro.

Steve, on the other hand, is almost twitching, biting back suggestions about which washer to use and other such stuff. Danny’s not really interested and probably never will be.

“Don’t be a goof, babe,” he says, because he’s feeling oddly charitable. “You’re a SEAL, you’ve tamed the seven seas, you are the lord of the sharks, you’ve found your Wilson, whatever, whatever - this does not mean you need to be able to bend the kitchen pipes to your will.”

Truth be told, Danny isn’t entirely sure that’s true – there’s probably great use to the efficient direction of water flow, things with black-submarines and stopping leaks and whatever else it is that professional aquamen get up to in their spare time. But the stakes aren’t quite so high in this case, so he’s content to coax Steve to let it go.

It’s at this point that Kiana, the pizza-delivery-driver, (and, more importantly, the only person able to hook up Grace’s playstation) approaches him. Not even the astronomical food bill is enough to put him in a bad mood.

-

Danny pats himself down as he rises from the couch, shakes his empty pockets and revels in the fact that he’s about to get free pizza – sure, it might not be like the slices from back home, but free food is nothing to sneeze at. 

And, okay, in his heart of hearts he knows that he’ll end up paying, and tipping, because even though he’s done some truly stupid things in the name of honoring a bet, he can’t screw over an impoverished college student who always throws in the cheesy bread when her boss isn’t looking.

There’s another knock at the door, irritable and impatient, and it makes the little part of Danny’s soul that’s a bastard jump with happiness. Just because he’s going to pay, doesn’t mean he can’t have a little fun first.

“Coming!” he trills, before pausing at the door and waiting, waiting, waiting some more, until Steve ambles out of the kitchen with a clutch of napkins and an exasperated huff. 

“Don’t be a dick, Danny, let her in.”

“You always spoil my fun,” Danny grumbles, waving his hands when it looks like Steve’s about to trod out his itemized list of times when Danny put the metaphorical-pin back into his metaphorical grenade-plans.

“Kiana,” he all but sing-songs, sweeping the door open with a flourish, beckoning the aforementioned college student and part-time delivery driver in with a flick of his wrist. He’s pleased by the hefty stack of pizza boxes she’s sporting, and isn’t afraid to say as much. “A feast fit for a king! I drink from the Keg of Glory, Kiana. The Keg? Of Glory. What do I drink from? Say it with me now.”

A pair of thin and unimpressed eyebrows wiggle to the left of the stack. “The keg of glory, Danny,” she drones, even as Steve shifts forward to help her pile the food on the table by the television.

Danny clucks, not at all pleased with her disinterested tone. “You come into _my_ house? You cast aspersions on _my_ team? Oh, grasshopper, I shall introduce you to the error of your ways.”

The error of Kiana’s ways, as it turns out, is about fifty bucks worth of pizza, pasta, and enough garlic bread that would shelve the kissing plans of less dedicated men than Steve. 

Kiana’s already in the process of trying to get Steve on her side, all, “Seriously, brah, of all the people, you had to choose him?” It’s a smart move, actually, because Steve loves an opportunity to groan about the burden that is Danny Williams, and she knows it.

It’s not enough, unfortunately – Danny is a crucial key to Steve’s future happiness, both sexual and otherwise, and Steve purses his lips as he mentally categorizes his priorities. His gaze lands on Danny’s ass when he comes to his decision, and Kiana rolls her eyes before flopping into the armchair. She toes her shoes off, plonks her feet on the table and makes gimme gimme hands at the boxes.

“You’ve been delivering to us for too long,” Steve laments, even has he waves a slice in front of her face.

Danny drops to his side of the two-seater, shifts, hitches a hip to make room for Steve when he inevitably settles down with a clink of kneecaps – there’s a mile of open cushion, but Steve’s a bold-snuggler when it comes to couch shenanigans. They’re not weird about it or anything, but this is the safety of their home, and Kiana’s an old-hat at navigating the McGarrett-Williams dynamic.

He feels the weight of Steve’s gaze on his pizza, and a lesser man might deny that he clutches his pepperoni to his chest like a second-born, but Danny is not a lesser man. 

“Don’t even think about it,” he scolds, creeping the box open, breathing in the scent before snapping the lid shut protectively. He’s a Williams, a scrapper at the dinner table, and if push comes to shove he’d rather possess food than eat it. “You always do this. You always order, and then you want whatever I get. There is an actual, physical pile of food in front of you, goddam it Steven.”

“Oh, cool your jets, brah,” Kiana mouths off, sliding a box out from somewhere near the middle. “I brought two of everything, I figured he’d want whatever you chose.”

Steve looks moderately aghast at being so thoroughly anticipated by a graphic-design major, but Danny feels the cockles of his heart slowly begin to defrost. “Hhmm,” he murmurs shrewdly, or as shrewdly as one can while chomping on a mouthful of cheese. “A point in your favor, Kiana, I shall remember this moment.” 

And then they’re off, the game starts, and suddenly it’s double or nothing. 

-

There’s a simple pleasure to being pressed to the front door, a delightful pleasure to the way Steve keeps fumbling the key in the lock, a heady pleasure to the swell of Steve’s cock against his belly – even through layers of denim.

They’re grinding against each other, ridiculously disheveled, and Steve grits out a, “Fuck, why do you have to be so far down?” even as he wedges a thigh between Danny’s knees, hitches him up until he’s on his tip-toes. “There,” he announces, entirely too pleased with himself. “That’s much better.”

Danny would shout until he was blue in the face, but fuck if it isn’t actually a lot easier this way. He gets his revenge with a snap to Steve’s bottom lip, tugging roughly on the plump flesh before letting out a strategically timed whimper, as if to say, _oh, sorry, that was an accident, I would never mean to hurt you._

He plays Steve like a fiddle, and Steve whimpers back, an unspoken _it’s okay babe, do it again._

Danny does so, licking his way into Steve’s mouth - it’s sloppier than is perhaps sexy for men of their experience, but Steve abandons the door entirely for worming his way into Danny’s underwear, so Danny’s prepared to chalk it up as a win.

And oh, oh, fuck, if this isn’t the best thing about being in love, then he doesn’t know what is. Sure, there’s the sex, and the fights, the apology-pancakes and the fact that he can take Steve’s wallet to pay for team-beers. But there’s also _this_ \- Steve grinning against his mouth, kiss forgotten, puffs of breath mingling between their lips.

It’s a done deal, Danny’s heart is lost, loses itself day after day. He can’t even bring himself to care, because they’re gone on a smile, noses mashed, Steve’s stupid eyelashes dusting butterfly kisses to Danny’s cheeks.

None of this helps, however, when there’s a cough from somewhere near the end of the footpath. Steve spins around so fast that he drops Danny like a stone, and it makes Danny crazy, the way Steve shifts to shield him from potential harm. It’s like all six feet of tattooed muscle reverts to protector-caveman when he has sex on the brain, and it’s only the fact that they’re at home, and not on the job, that stops Danny from chewing him out right there and then.

“Oh, hey Noa,” he throws over the slope of Steve’s shoulder, surreptitiously adjusting his briefs, (and his hair) before ducking out from under Steve’s arm.

Noa, from beneath his post-office hat, looks like he’s about to roll over with laughter. It’s perplexing, really, because he catches them making out at their front door at least once a month. 

“Got a _package_ for you, Danny,” he announces, holding up a clipboard and a small brown box. He speaks as if he’s achieved some nirvana-like plane of witty goodness, and Danny all but stops in his tracks with the need to groan.

“Seriously? Seriously? You’re giving me _package_ jokes?” He plucks the stylo from Noa’s grip, scribbling his signature on the clipboard, even as he continues his bluster full-steam ahead. “I expected more from you, Noa. Really, honestly, truly, I am awash in a sea of disappointment right now.”

“Gotta make do with what I’m given, brah,” Noa protests, the picture of an innocent man trying to do his best in a harsh, cruel world.

Before Danny can argue, he feels Steve come to rest by his elbow, and he settles for clucking when Noa reaches out for a fist-bump – they’re eternal four year olds, the both of them. 

“Howzit, howzit,” they trade back and forth, and Danny contemplates opening the package as they chatter, before deciding that he’d really rather keep the prospect of sex on the horizon.

There’s this thing, about being in a relationship with Steve McGarrett, and it revolves around the noble art of picking one’s battles. Danny knows that it’s not a skill that comes naturally to him – see, one failed marriage – but it’s something that he’s working on, if for no other reason than the way Steve makes his heart jump happily.

And so he’s learning to set the Bar of Compromise at unusual highs and lows – dig his heels in regarding rocket launchers and the application thereof, but indulge Steve’s invasive need to know everything and anything. (Occasionally, at any rate.) He spent their first few months together shouting about privacy within relationships being an _actual_ thing that _actually_ existed, but mystery only seems to hurt Steve, bruise him undeservedly.

This _particular_ battle, involves Steve’s inability to keep his nose out of anything that’s stamped _Det. D. Williams._ It brings Steve immeasurable happiness to be included in whatever letters Danny receives - and, though he’d never confess it without a few beers in his system, making Steve happy is something that Danny treasures.

As such, it is with an accepting sigh that he slides the package into those tanned, dexterous, outstretched hands. It’s just a little trinket, something Grace found online and asked him to organize for Steve on her behalf. He watches Steve – deep in discussion with Noa about the King’s chances for the season - curl his fingers around the weathered brown paper, applying a level of tenderness that he usually reserves for broken bones.

Those same fingers smooth across the label, slide the package into one of the many compartments of his cargos, and then reach out, imploring. It’s like a standing equivalent of the yawn-and-stretch, totally goofy and endearingly confident. Sure enough, he feels Steve’s hand slide into the back pocket of his jeans, fingertips grabbing a meaty portion of his ass and giving a good squeeze. 

And Danny, well, he’s a bit of a shit, he knows he is – he resists the first tug, and the second, tuts at the third. Finally, finally, he shuffles his feet, lists sideways until his hip bumps Steve’s leg and he’s tucked against that stupidly tall side – and goddam it, he knows he made the right choice when Steve beams like a fool.

He could join in the conversation, but he’s surprisingly content to let their chatter wash over him. His breakfast is full in his belly, it’s not so stupidly hot under the leafiness of their front yard, and Noa is now halfway through a re-enactment of one of Steve’s _less_ than stellar high school football plays, (there’s footage, apparently, and Danny’s already concocting a malasada-based plan to con Chin into finding it for him). 

To the right, Mrs. Peterson is ambling towards her car, and she spares him a brief but friendly wave as she rumbles the ignition and putters down the street. Steve’s fingers shift in his pocket, fumble the little note that’s in there: a post-it from Kiana, _thanks, Danny, you’re the best_ \- something she slipped in with last night’s pizza, when she discovered he’d stashed the money for the bet-bill in her backpack.

So, all in all, life is good. Yeah. Life is good.

-

“Evening Mrs. Peterson,” Danny says, squashing and squishing the trash into the bin before resorting to beating it with a stick.

There’s something to be said for the way that Mrs. Peterson doesn’t even blink at the bloodied cargos peeking out of the bag. She’s the sort of person who comes over with a pitcher of lemonade, steps delicately between the bullet-riddled chaos that is Casa McGarrett-Williams, and asks if anybody is in need of refreshments. Danny will take the sight of her, brushing off both Steve’s stuttered apologies about the mess _and_ an ember from her dressing gown, to his grave.

“Evening, Danny,” she replies, doing something with pruning shears to the front hedge that marvels the mind. 

He’s been trying to coax Steve into asking her for lessons, because Steve’s face always wrinkles at the notion that he’s not the biggest badass on the block. Frankly, Danny’s getting a little tired of it. 

“And please,” she continues, snipping and snapping, the envy of SEALs the world over. “Call me Delores, I’ve told you a thousand times.”

Danny grins, executes one last parry against the bag before slamming the lid down in a wave of triumph. “Sure thing, Mrs. Peterson,” he says, because he might be an ass, but his mother raised him a certain way, and there’s no chance in hell that he’s going to call his eighty-three year old neighbor by her first name.

She tuts, rolls her eyes like someone decades her junior, says, “Come on then,” as she beckons him over with a jaunty wave. “I’ll show you my trade-secrets, it’ll make Steve crazy.”

And oh, oh, there is nothing Danny loves more than being in cahoots with someone who wants to drive Steve batty, especially a shears-wielding octogenarian with a penchant for mischief.

He’s just slicing off an errant cluster of twigs when large hands slip to his waist, the breadth and height and warmth of Steve’s frame pressing comfortingly to his back. Before he can get a word in edge-ways about poor life choices vis-à-vis sneaking up on people carrying sharp blades, Steve is bidding Mrs. Peterson hello.

It’s good, this feeling, that they can touch and be a stupid ordinary boring couple, because Mrs. Peterson just keeps gardening, like her lean mean task-force detective neighbors cuddling on her front lawn is nothing, just another day at the office.

It’s good, because even though Steve’s the kind of person who buys beer at the corner shop in wet boardies and nothing else, even though he kisses Danny full on the mouth in front of god and country, even though he clowns around, sneaks his hand up Danny’s shirt until Kamekona separates them with a spatula – even with all of that, he’s also the sort of person who is vehemently protective of quiet intimacy. 

He saves his _I loves yous_ for the shuffle of getting dressed, for hip-checks at the kitchen sink, for shampoo mohawks in the outdoor shower and for leaning over the gearstick when they survive another day. He’s so particular about when he lets his guard down and just _is_ \- a tall muscled goof that Danny calls home – that Danny appreciates any opportunity to see him relaxed.

It’s good, because even though Danny enjoys dwindling away an hour of his evening with Mrs. Peterson, he’s not too keen on leaving his partner alone in the house at the moment, is happy that Steve has come outside. He can feel the scratch of Steve’s bandage against his knee, warmed by the injured skin beneath it, and his hairs catch as their legs shift together. Hoping to signal that it’s time to head in for the night, he hands the shears back to Mrs. Peterson.

“Don’t you be stubborn about resting that leg of yours, Steven,” she orders, and oh, Danny wants to pick her up and twirl her around, wants to hoot with glee at how petulant Steve looks. It gets better when she turns, says, “And Danny, excellent handling of the blades, really, you’re a natural.”

One of the fringe-benefits of _being_ a shears-wielding octogenarian with a penchant for mischief, is that Steve is morally and socially bound not to bend her to his will with shouting and small weapons fire. So he just sulks a little, crosses his arms to display his muscles, grinds out a, “Yes, Mrs. Peterson.” 

The evening passes in a haze of pizza and baseball after that, Steve sprawled on the couch, legs cradled in Danny’s lap. Ridiculously long - and naked - feet wiggle happily over the armrest whenever the Yankees hit a homerun, and Danny’s so damn pleased that he managed to con Steve onto his team, he can’t even cope.

It’s not until they’re heaving and huffing their way up the stairs, Danny, (for once) grateful that he fits under Steve’s arm like a glove, that Steve asks the inevitable. He does so in his usual fashion, with little tact and less diplomacy, says, “So, are you going to show me what she taught you, or what?” 

“Oh babe,” Danny whispers, settling Steve down on the edge of the bed. The crinkles at the edges of Steve’s eyes tell a tale, and it’s obvious that he’s in more pain than he was earlier - whether from the hike up the stairs or from his pain pills wearing off.

It’s a brief trip to the medicine cabinet, Danny gathering what he needs in the light from the bedroom, before shuffling back to stand between Steve’s knees. 

Steve palms his hips, leans forward to rest his cheek against the scruff of Danny’s stomach, his shoulders drooping with exhaustion. “This is good,” he mutters tiredly, nosing Danny’s belly and settling in to roost. “Don’t move, just stay there. This is good. This is good.”

Danny sighs, drops the bottle of ibuprofen on the bed, the better to card his fingers through Steve’s hair. There’s an old scar above Steve’s right temple, needle-thin, but he knows Steve’s skin well enough to find it in the dark, worries the mark softly, stills when Steve falls asleep against his belly with a puff of air.

They can’t stay like this for long, too battered, (and god, too old, 40 is looming on the horizon) but Danny doesn’t relish having to wake Steve up. He’s heavy, not to mention habitually uncooperative, but once again the bandage scratches against his knee. Oh, the things Danny would do for this man, huge and hurt, heroic in a way that Danny both hates and loves.

It’s barely a breath when he murmurs, “Alright, Steve, I’ll show you what she taught me.” There’s a stubbly half-smile against his belly-button, and he scratches Steve’s scalp and coaxes him back to sleep.

-

Kono is a wonder at many, many things, so Danny doesn’t know why he expected that she’d be a tame organizer of parties. He forgets, sometimes, that for her intelligence and competence and maturity, she’s also just that tiny bit younger than the rest of them. He might’ve done some crazy-ass shit in his youth, and gotten a busted nose, (not entirely undeserved) for his troubles, but he was never, ever, as cool and as collected as she is.

“Ho brah!” she chirps, rolling a keg into his house that must be twice her weight, and is almost half his height.

An assortment of people that he’s never met trail after her, ranging from the very large to the very muscled to the very tiny. And really, Danny knows, a swarm of unknown people tromping into his house with a variety of regret-inducing beverages should’ve been the first sign that things were about to go postal. 

So he can’t blame anybody but himself when he wakes up to a terrible smell in the air, a dagger between his eyeballs, and suspicious grunting-creaking-god-fuck-yes noises filtering down the hallway from the spare bedroom. 

Steve, who looks like he has neither showered nor shaved in days, wakes when Danny wakes, but his pained, “What the fuck happened?” is not the norm. He’s typically chipper in the morning, off to forge rivers and slay dragons for the good of the townsfolk.

He also stinks, but Danny suspects it’s mutual – either way, he doesn’t want to risk opening his mouth to complain, lest more than words fall out. He grunts, eternally grateful that theirs is a relationship with telepathic communication, because Steve grunts back, answering all of the questions that he didn’t even ask.

Any fondness that he might feel for the man evaporates in an instant, when he realizes that his belly-hair is covered in jizz, crusted and disgusting and what even has his life come to, fuck Steve, fuck everything, fuck this headache, fuck fuck fuck. 

And yeah, maybe it’s his own, because he vaguely remembers shouting something along the lines of, _god, yes, yes, don’t stop!_ a few hours earlier, but it’s easier to blame Steve and Steve’s caveman-like assault of the things that he enjoys; see, Danny’s dick.

He transfers all of his anger to his eyes, still feeling that speaking is probably not the best course of action, and Steve is gone and back again with a wet-towel of apology.

Another grunt, because, no – no, that is just making things worse, his frustration is building at breakneck speed, he’s about to speak, he’s about to _explode_ \- when there’s a spectacular crash from downstairs, startling his breath back into his belly.

Normally, Steve would be hurtling out the door like a man on a mission, so it’s a sign of his dejected and sickly tiredness that he just flops into the mattress and whimpers, kitten-like. He pillows his head on his arms – apparently Danny’s orgasm was longer ago than he thought, because his cock twitches with interest, despite the stabbing sensation in his brain.

The point is, he’s not made of stone, nor is he immune to the almost pornographic noises coming from three rooms over. He worms to Steve’s side, deciding to mentally declare the mess on his belly an equal-contribution thing and move on to round two.

Alas, it is not to be. Steve actually looks green around the gills, and there’s more and more noise coming from downstairs, none of which sounds like gentile mice tip-toeing through the daisies. Another crash, a smash, a, “Fuck, Keahi, don’t touch that!” Danny has no idea who Keahi is, has never met Keahi, nor his designated-handler, so it’s with a groan that he hauls himself out of bed. Awkward limbs work their way into shorts and a tee, because nobody but Steve should have to see the incriminating mess on his belly, and then he’s heading for the door.

He’s prepared to take one for the team, shoo people out of his house and let Steve recuperate or wallow or buck-up, sailor; whatever it is that SEALs do when they’ve had eleven too many and possess issues with showing signs of weakness. But there’s a creak from behind him, and he turns to see Steve lever himself to standing, pad across the floor even as he tugs his boxers on, only tripping once.

Danny leads the way, Steve snugged close against his back – mostly, Danny suspects, for balance, but also just because Steve is a handsy bastard in the mornings. Or, scratch that, Danny’s just caught sight of the clock, it’s 3PM and he’s living in a frat-house, apparently.

Steve looks about as shocked as a human face is able to convey, as though he’s worried that the Navy is going to owl-post him a Howler declaring his expulsion from the armed forces for rising in an untimely manner. But it’s nothing compared to the shock he gets when Danny opens the door to the spare bedroom, primed and ready to halt any and all sexual shenanigans under his roof that aren’t his and Steve’s.

“Hey! I don’t know who you are under there, but knock it off!”

Which is the point at which Chin’s head pops up from under the covers, eyebrows drawn into an extraordinarily guilty expression. Malia has the good graces to stay hidden beneath the covers, but there’s no blanket thick enough to mute her giggling.

Chin stares at them. Danny stares back, feels Steve standing ram-rod straight behind him, the three of them stuck in a swirling vortex of embarrassment. 

“Just. Wash the sheets when you’re done. Please. Thank you. Chin. Lieutenant Kelly. Fuck.” He shuts the door, stares at it for a second, feels Steve’s puffs of breath against the curls at the base of his neck. He doesn’t even know what he’s just said, only knows that he said it.

The morning doesn’t take a turn from there, just continues to coast along at what is apparently the new normal, cresting when Kono skitters in from the beach, fresh-faced and pixie-clean. Danny hates her. Okay, he loves her, he adores her, but his brain feels like it’s been in a blender set to banana smoothie, and she looks like a glistening sea-nymph. The only consolation is that Steve looks like he bypassed the smoothie setting entirely and crash-landed at daiquiri-crushed-ice, so there is some joy in the world after all.

It’s to a chorus of ear-piercing whistles that Chin and Malia creep downstairs, both finding a patch of dining-room floor in a flurry of blushing cheeks. Malia tucks her face to Chin’s neck when Toast outright howls like a wolf, and only Steve’s “shut up!” restores even a modicum of order.

Danny can’t say that he’s surprised to find himself cooking breakfast for twenty plus people, all in various stages of booze-related grief. There’s the still-loopy, who’re busy reprogramming his remote -“no, seriously, stop that you little shitheads. Keahi, ol’ buddy ol’ pal, watch them, please, please, I beg of you.” There’s the _why-do-I-do-this-to-myself?_ gang, all clutching at their heads in quiet despair. Last but not least, there’s the inevitable _I’m-never-drinking-again, no-seriously_ sect, looking like they’ve had an epiphany that Danny doesn’t have the heart to say they’ll probably break.

He doesn’t know if it’s some twisted paternal instinct that rises unbidden at the sight of so many sick people, or if it’s the way Kono’s beaming at him, begging for some grinds, that sees him whipping around the kitchen. Plates from here, skillets from there, easy efficiency and familiar fingers. A heaping of salt, the cheap stuff for these little shits, thanks, and loops of spring onion thrown in for some token greenery. 

He turns to reach for the milk, one eye on the frying pans, when he catches sight of Kono looking at him fondly.

“What?” He’s using his words now, but there’s no need to be any more loquacious than necessary, which is not _normally_ an imperative that forms part of his character-foundation.

“You,” she replies, with a kind of quiet tenderness that doesn’t jive with his morning thus far. “You’re at home here.” She hurries up when he looks like he’s about to say something snarky. “I know, I know, you’ve lived here for years now. But you’re…” Her hands cast about, as though grasping for the right words. “You _belong_ here.”

Which isn’t to say that he doesn’t set the smoke alarm off ten seconds later, but Steve goes on to demolish three plates of eggs with a goofily happy face. So, in the end, Danny can only smile and say, “Yeah. Yeah, I really do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Harry Potter, Cast Away and The West Wing references ahoy! Sorry, not sorry.
> 
> I like goofy-Steve, it's a weakness. I like catching him in his adorkable moments. :D


End file.
